In recent years, there has been a tendency toward thinner steel plates in order to reduce the weights of vehicles such as automobiles. Such a tendency for thinning is accompanied by a lower rigidity of steel plates. Thinned steel plates are more liable to transmit the unevenness of traveling surfaces, and the vibration and noise of engines. Under the circumstances, proposals have been made to employ resin sheets to compensate for the rigidity of steel plates or resin sheets to damp vibration or the like (see Patent Document 1).
An apparatus has also been proposed for automatically stripping off release paper attached to a reinforcing resin sheet and pasting the sheet to a side member acting as an outer side plate of an automobile body. This apparatus pastes the resin sheet as follows.
First, the release paper is stripped from the resin sheet. That is, a pressure roller provided on an arm of a release paper pressing device is swung down while being pressed on the release paper which is larger than the resin sheet and is projecting from a forward end of a guide member disposed forward of a conveyer belt. The pressure roller at a destination of the descent cooperates with the conveyer belt to hold an end of the release paper. By driving the conveyer belt continuously in this state, the release paper is stripped off while the resin sheet fed from the guide member.
The resin sheet stripped of the release paper is placed on a sheet support disposed forward of the guide member. Pads of a vacuum suction device are pressed on to suck the resin sheet on the sheet support, and transport it to and place it on the side member of the automobile. Then, a cylindrical pressing roller is rolled on the resin sheet to paste it to the side member (see Patent Document 2).
[Patent Document 1]
Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-139218
[Patent Document 2]
Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-24038